Editorial: Driverless cars have great potential for good and abuse

Google, in a remarkable feat of engineering, has unveiled a prototype for a driverless car. While we should celebrate and encourage such technological innovation, we must also be mindful of the potential abuses and unintended consequences of the technology.

In a post on Google's blog, the company hailed its self-driving car project and revealed a plan to build about 100 copies of the prototype and test them over the summer. A video showed passengers, including an apparently blind man, riding in a small car with no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals.

"If all goes well," the post noted, "we'd like to run a small pilot program here in California in the next couple of years."

The Google post states that the prototypes "have sensors that remove blind spots, and they can detect objects out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions."

Considering that human error accounts for some 80 percent to 90 percent of traffic accidents, the more driverless cars there are on the roads, the more accidents may be reduced.

That's particularly true in an era where distracted driving seems to be the rule, not the exception, our mania for multi-tasking encouraged by modern cars equipped with communication, navigational and entertainment systems, and cup-holders for all hands on board.

Multiple charge ports make it easy to re-energize everything from the tablet to the electric shaver, and that mirror above the driver's seat is handy for touching up make-up, even if that's not the intention.

It's the same with new technologies such as driverless cars — along with the hoped-for increase in safety, there is also great potential for abuse.

How secure will the data and wireless transmissions be, for example? Could someone — like the NSA — track our every movement, or remotely take control of the car?

Would police be able to force your car to a standstill? Would hackers learn a new way to create chaos? Would a driverless car's transmission make it easier, or harder, for carjackers and thieves?

Could governments prevent you from exceeding a certain speed if you're running late? Or keeping you from dropping below the speed limit if you're really just out for a ride in the country?

There also are social implications. Google wonders at the possibilities of driverless cars: Drunk "and distracted driving? History."

However, there are unintended consequences whenever individuals give up responsibility.

It would be great if driverless cars could keep someone who had had a bit too much to drink from getting behind the wheel. On the other hand, it might encourage excessive drinking because people would no longer worry about driving home.

That doesn't mean they'd be safe from harm once they arrived at their destination.

These concerns are no reason to restrain developing the technology. Creative thinkers through time have contributed in no small part to this nation's success, particularly when working without the hindrance of excessive government oversight and regulation.

These also are the circumstances that seem to best allow others to solve the problems created by the unintended consequences or abuses of new technologies.